I am going to read Mystic City by Theo Lawerence. It's a new dystopian YA novel :) I'm so happy for December. It means only two weeks left if school before winter break! I can practically smell the freedom.

I will be reading the Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart. I have read it before. I read it every time I need a lift. I disappear into the world of the 5th century, and come up smiling very time. Brilliant book, brilliant trilogy. If you haven't read it, you should.

"Orange Petals in a Storm" by Dr. Niamh Clune. It is magical realism and metaphysical literature intertwined with imagination and the powers of which that can save a young girl from the most horrendous of people she has but no choice in which to live. It's her escape that tells the story of who she is. I, usually, have more than one book going at a time. I, also, intend to read Jack Kerouac's "On the Road." Should be an interesting combination. Also, interwoven between the spaces a fantastic book on Haiku poetry. Your book sounds like it has tremendous possibilities. Let's enjoy winter with the hopes of some snow but no blizzards or insane power outages. And please let us all be warm enough. The chill has already been in the air far too long already. j.k. ;-)

I'm reading Scoop by Evelyn Waugh. I have a HUGE hardback anthology of all his collected works and read one of his novels each year over Christmas as this book is way too heavy to carry on the train!. As I'm not working this year, there was no reason not to start early..

I'm with Beverley – it'll certainly be Charles Dickens over Christmas. I have them all on paper but haven't yet decided which one I'll take down. But the first in December? It'll be the first Sherlock Holmes story – 'A study in scarlet'. So far I've read the first chapter. Thanks to a prompt from a 'writer' blog I follow, I took the complete works from Amazon for my Kindle – all of 77p! As the post suggested, don't be mislead by what Hollywood did to Sherlock. But most of all, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle really could write – I hadn't really appreciated that many, many decades ago when I first read all his Holmes stories.

Looks like you and I will be reading the same book (almost). The book I"ll be finishing up is: "Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal" by Christopher Moore (I think mine must be the sequel to yours. I don't want to spoil the ending for you by telling you that your main character's gonna die, but I should warn you to keep plenty of tissues handy just in case).

Nonfiction, actually, but I just started Tim Wise's updated "White Like Me." I intend to give Gatsby another whirl soon, though. I had trouble engaging with it a few months back when I first tried reading.

Jose Saramago also wrote an EPIC book, it's called Blindness, it is pretty hard to follow but seriously an amazing read once you decide that hard-reading is actually not so bad, the whole thing just makes you think and ponder like you have never done before, I totally recommend it.

I am finishing Flowers for Algernon, which my son had assigned to him and I decided to read again. Then it is a historical novel about women in the California Gold Rush – For California's Gold, by JoAnn Levy.

where i live december is the time of year where the average daily temperature finally gets under 90 degrees f., a great time to go hiking and photographing. the novel i am planning on reading is "Game of Thrones" which may not be deep or meaningful, but i am a sucker for fantasy novels

If I can find either one of these (or both) in my school's library, I'll probably look for Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury or Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I read Fahrenheit 451 in middle school, but it's been such a long time since I've read it that I want to reread it and do the reading more justice than I did when I was in middle school. ^_^

I am going to finish State of Wonder by Ann Patchett (a sort of feminine Heart of Darkness) and then try again to read My Name is Red by Turkish Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk (I got hopelessly tangled in the shifting perspectives and personas on my first attempt.)

I'm going to read Guy Vanherhaeghe's novel – A Good Man. Vanderhaeghe is a brilliant Canadian author and I'm looking forward to finally reading this novel – I can't seem to read when I'm up to my neck in writing. Do other people have that experience?

I will be finishing Dead Girl Moon by Edgar-winning YA writer Charlie Price because he's an amazing writer, friend, and because he mentioned me in the acknowledgments. That always puts the book first on my list!

My dad just bought me the Complete Sherlock Holmes, so I'll probably be reading some of that, but I've had The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo on my kindle for yonks and I really want to read that, so it's a toss up.

I'm reading The Happiness of Kati, by Jane Vejjajiva. It's a children's novel, set in Thailand, translated from Thai by Prudence Borthwick. I bought it a few weeks ago when I was in Bangkok for the Reaching the World writers' summit.

You’re braver than I am! I'll be interested to see what you think of it.

I have a tendency to start books and not finish them, but am reading Omnivore’s Dilemma now. I also have a copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan that I’ve been meaning to start for a long time.

I don't normally read novels (sorry), but I'm working on The Golden Bough by Frazer, Works and Days and Theogony by Hesiod, and Totemism by Levi-Strauss. Trying to stay focused on my current project. :)

I'll have to look into the Gospel According to Jesus Christ – I'm intrigued. Cheers!

Since it is difficult to choose, I don't like to limit myself to one book at a time. Ergo, it will be I AM DAVID by Anne Holm and BOUNDARIES: The making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees by Peter Sahlins and A SENSE OF THE WORLD: How a blind man became history's greatest traveller by Jason Roberts. That will do for a start.

We often get donations at the museum I volunteer at, so I have picked up a few free reads, Reader's Digest Journeys into the Past "Life on the Home Front" and "Adolf Hitler" by John Toland. However, if you have not read Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong, I would suggest it as an interesting read.

I finally started reading The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling and I must say that as a massive HP fan, I was a bit worried whether I would compare it with HP books but I must gladly say that I am naturally not doing it and I enjoy reading a lot. Completely different but you can feel the quality of long writing author. :) Recommend to all. An interesting read.

I stopped reading Saramago the night he came have dinner at my house with his wife and few other friends of ours after a conference he gave in Barcelona. Blindness is as stressing as it mind be being blind in our society. Although he is quite skeptical and radical on his views he was needed to be that way, coherent with his writings and own life. Our dinner was like having a meeting of blind people crossing a highway, without sticks, only speed traffic in all the directions.

I still need some recommendations for good books to read. Have been given a few but just haven't found the time to sit and read them! For now I shall stick to my book on land law and also equity & trusts I suppose.

Because December is a dreary month in China, I'm reading novels set in India….A Fine Balance, The God of Small Things, Midnight's Children. January means Thailand…and that calls for something long, for those long beach and poolside days, and perhapsRussian…the Brother's Karamazov, and Of Mice and Men are definitely on the list.